Blinded
by TheRantDragon
Summary: No blinding white fluorescent lights; no infirmary; no friends with smiles on their faces. Nothing. It's like she's still asleep. And that, of course, is when the panic sets in for her. Wally/Artemis. The Team.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters. (if i did there would be more weddings and less ceasing)**

**I actually wrote something, it's a miracle! Please enjoy my cruelty, and I apologize for any massive mistakes, I'm not an expert on this matter.**

**o.o.o.o**

" -temis, looks like she's waking up!"

_Ugh, five more minutes._

"D'you think she'll be okay?"

"'Course she will, this is Artemis we're talking about. Babe, come on now, wake up and tell them how peachy you are."

_I'd really rather not, my head hurts like hell. _

"Beautiful..." the voice comes softer. Artemis finally stirs, groaning at the gentle weight of something passing through her hair a few times. The pads of rough fingers pat at her cheek.

"Artemis."

The archer swats at the annoying gesture, earning chuckles from several people, and a huff emanating from close to her side, that she finally fully realizes is that of her boyfriend.

Her eyes are very irritated, she notices as she pushes herself up a bit without peeling them open, and thinks it might be lack of sleep. Which is funny, considering she doesn't remember falling asleep at all in the last few hours.

"Artemis, friend, how are you feeling?" That's Kaldur's voice to the right, calm and gentle, his palm coming to rest on the top of her kneecap in a squeeze.

Artemis is puzzled by the question. Had something happened? Her headache is keeping her from thinking straight, and her memory is fuzzy. With a tired grunt, the blonde forces her lids apart, intent on fixing her friend's with a confused, sleep-deprived gaze that demands to know why they're all crowding around her like she's in the infirmary.

Except, Artemis can't see her friends. Or her surroundings. Which is frankly a bit worrisome.

"Babe?" Wally asks, his fingers tightening around the hand she hadn't registered that he was holding. Her body has gone rigid.

"Nothing, I just... uh..." Artemis says lowly, her voice raspy. She clenches the fingers of her free hand and opens her lids wider, wider, until she's sure she must look like an absolutely wide-eyed lunatic in a psyche ward. "I can't see." she manages, somehow keeping the panic out of her voice. "What's going on?"

"It's probably just the gauze," grunts Conner, from somewhere straight ahead of Artemis. She furrows her brows.

"Gauze? Am I in the infirmary?"

"Yeah, you had us all kind of worried." Dick; about time he said something. Guess that means the gangs all there. Staring at her in a moment of weakness. Great.

"What happened?"

"I am afraid that you were exposed to Bane's choice drug on our mission. It appears the chemical is quite volatile in contact with the skin; there were... extensive burns."

Oh. Well.

"That sounds... _fantastic_," Artemis ekes out. "I can't honestly say I remember any of that."

"Don't look so freaked out, Wally. She hit her head on the ground too, there's bound to be a little temporary cognitive dysfunction," Dick assures, sounding mildly amused. When isn't Dick mildly amused, though.

Artemis smirks to herself, the perfect image of that worried look Wally always gets on his face when he's being cutely and overly concerned about her well being in her mind's eye.

"Right, right... Okay, let's try taking this gauze off."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Well she can't just sit there practically _blind_."

"Look, how about I just take it off myself so that way Canary can scold the usual culprit," Artemis suggests, already reaching up to pry her fingers beneath the medical tape holding the material over her eyes.

The Team makes sounds of agreement, all of them knowing full well how disagreeable Artemis gets when it comes to matters of her own well being. She rolls her eyes at them; though she's a little disappointed they can't see the gesture with all this fun-tape all over her eyes. She wonders how bad it looks.

She hadn't noticed, at least not until she's peeling the gauze away, just how tender the areas of skin around her eyes are. It makes her hiss curses through her teeth, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. Wally puts mild pressure on her bicep.

"Babe, if it's hurting you that much maybe-"

"I'm fine. There, all done." she says mildly, dropping the gauze and tape onto the bed.

"Ouch," Dick says sympathetically.

"Oh, _babe_..." Wally's mutters softly, his thumb coming up to gently stroke an area right below what she guesses must be some pretty ravaged skin. Her heart beats a little faster, only partially because of Wally's genteel touch, and more from the fact that she had never even thought about some kind of permanent disfigurement or bad scars. Not that scars weren't something featured heavily in her life, so she'd get over it. But still…

"Is it that bad?"

"Nothing some time healing won't fix."

She lets out a breath. Good.

"Okay, time to let the blinding light in." Artemis bemoans. If she's been out of it for any length of time, with all light blocked from her pupils, she knows it's going to destroy her retinas when she opens them.

Except, there isn't any light. Like, none at all. She squints at first, with the intention of letting the light into her eyes a little at a time, but then her lids are opening more and more and more, until they're wide open and there's not a thing in Artemis's vision. No blinding white fluorescent lights; no infirmary; no friends with smiles on their faces. Nothing. It's like she's still asleep. And that, of course, is when the panic sets in for her, and reality feels like it's falling apart around her.

"Artemis?" Conner inquires, the rare tone of worry in his voice. The archer's body trembles, her fingers curling tightly around Wally's hand, the nails digging into his flesh and alarming him.

"I can't... I can't see anything," she rasps, swallowing the bile in her throat. She shouldn't be panicking, right? It's probably just taking her vision a second to catch up to her, right? She had dangerous chemicals thrown into her eyes, it was bound to happen. But she's not convinced.

"Artemis, look at me," Kaldur's sensible voice commands of her. Always one to behave like a good soldier, Artemis lets her eyes move toward the sound of their leader's voice. And somehow, someway, she knows everything is terribly fucking wrong.

"Oh, _shit_," Dick whispers. M'gann lets out something between a gasp and a whimper. Artemis's head is enveloped by the two warmest hands she knows, and her face is turned forcefully.

"Artemis, Artemis, focus your eyes," Wally insists, and he sounds so very strained. Artemis shuts her eyes tight, feeling liquid seep out from her eyelids from lack of use. She opens them, wide, so freaking wide, her pupils forward, she thinks. But there's no Wally. No Wally, even though she can feel his breath ghosting across her face, the smell of pizza assaulting her nostrils.

"I will get Black Canary at once," Kaldur tells them urgently. Moments later she hears the sound of the sliding door open and close again. Wally's thumbs are stroking furiously at her cheeks, clearing away the wet trails.

"I can't see you," Artemis feels the need to tell him, her hands coming up to grasp at his wrists desperately. "I'm trying," she insists, closing her eyes tight again and again with the same results each time. "I'm fucking trying, I can't-"

"Artemis-"

"What the hell happened to me!" she demands, licking at her lips. "This is such shit," Artemis hisses, letting go of Wally's wrists to rub furiously at her sightless eyes. "This is such absolute shit, this isn't happening."

"It could be temporary blindness," Dick offers, though it's plain to all from his tone that he's not very hopeful.

Artemis is sure she's about to make the tender skin around her eyes start to bleed from how vigorously she rubs. She doesn't care though, mashes her palms deep against her eye sockets. Maybe pushing them deep into her skull will help; it'd certainly make her feel better.

"Artemis, stop!" Wally says, grabbing her hands to stop her before she can make things even worse. She wishes she could see his face, with its smattering of freckles and deep green eyes and worried expression. Even as she thinks about it, she loses the image of it. It's like she can see Wally's face so clearly the way she thinks it must look now, but the more desperately she yearns to see it, the more it slips away. She thinks maybe he has this little scar above his eyebrow, and some darker freckles underneath his right earlobe, but it's been so long since she last saw him that she begins to convince herself that's not really what he looks like.

_Get a grip_, Artemis scolds herself, steadying her breathing as Wally strokes the pulse points on the insides of her wrists. _You know exactly what Wally looks like. You know what the Team looks like, and you'll see them again, okay? Because this is some bullshit dream and there's no way that you're actually..._ She gulps. She can't bring herself to say the word, because if she does, it's there and it's solid and she'll be stuck with it, she knows.

At that moment, the door slides open, and the quieter footsteps of Kaldur'ahm are followed by the confident boots of Black Canary as she strides forward with purpose.

"Wally, I need you to give us some space here," the woman asks calmly, but with sternness. Wally moves with, Artemis guesses, some resignation, but move he does, and Black Canary's hand grips the archer's chin. There's a click of something near her face. "Artemis? Are you okay, are you with me?"

"I, yeah, I am. I'm fine."

"Good girl. How long have you been awake?"

"I guess about ten minutes?"

"And you haven't been able to see for that long?"

"N-No."

"Nothing at all?"

"No."

"Hm. Her pupils aren't dilating," Black Canary hums, and Artemis realizes she must be shining a flashlight into her eyes.

_Oh god, I really am blind_, Artemis screams in her head. Her breaths begin to come out more rapidly, and clearly nurse Canary takes notice.

"Artemis, I need you to try not to panic, okay? I know this must be scary but I really need you to keep it together, okay?"

"I- okay. I'm sorry, I just-"

"Don't apologize, just relax."

"Okay."

"Is she gonna-" Wally tries, his voice sounding scared.

"I'm not sure yet, Wally, a moment."

But something in the woman's voice gives her away. Artemis isn't dumb; she knows how hopeless her case is. It's almost enough to make her sob; as it is she swallows a thick lump in her throat, trying to keep it together because she's got a reputation to keep, okay.

"You can just say it," Artemis chokes out, biting at her bottom lip. "I'm blind now, right? I'm fucking _blind _for the rest of my life all because I got some kind of super enhanced version of steroids splashed into my stupid face!" The room goes uncomfortably quiet. The only sounds in her ears now are those of the buzzing fluorescent lights and her own barely held back sobs.

Black Canary sighs with deep regret."_ I'm so sorry, Artemis_," she says quietly, earnestly.

And that's when the dam breaks, and the archer starts to cry, harder than she remembers crying in her life. Because now she can't see anything, and she'll never sight another enemy down the shaft of an arrow, or see her mother's weathered, smiling face when she comes home from late night missions. She'll never see Wally's shining face again, with his stupid idiotic grins that make her heart skip all the way into her throat. How can she be a hero now? Black Canary pulls her close, letting her forehead rest on her shoulder. Artemis lets it all out, calming her sobs after a time until only a river of hot tears escapes silently onto the damp denim of her self-defense mentor's jacket.

**o.o.o.o (One week later) o.o.o.o**

The first few mornings of waking up to nothing but a sheet of blackness had been quite alarming for Artemis, especially since she went to bed each night with the vague hope that her gift of sight would be miraculously restored upon the morning's light. As of yet, her childish hopes had been dashed, which was unfortunately something she was very used to.

It had become an ongoing challenge for Artemis to avoid tripping over the rug between her and her sister's old bed each morning, and not kill herself trying to take a shower, and constantly batting her mother's overly helpful hands away. It wasn't that Artemis _didn't _need help, it's just that she didn't _need _anyone's help. At all. No matter how many times she tripped over things, no matter how many times she spilled some milk in her lap while eating breakfast, and no matter how many times she walked out the door without that god forsaken cane that she wanted to snap in half because she _didn't freaking need it at all_, Artemis kept trucking on.

Paula had not taken things well, had cried almost as hard as her daughter had upon receiving the news. But the Nguyen/Crocks were nothing if not strong women, and they found a way to keep moving on with their lives, even if it called for some pretty big changes, too.

"Artemis, I think it would be best if you took Red Tornado's offer of instruction in how to read braille."

"No."

"Artemis, you ought to let your friends help more, at least until you get used to your bearings."

"I already know where I'm going, I practically live at the Cave, mom."

"I just worry about you."

"... I know."

"I worry about how you might shut everyone out," Paula confesses.

Artemis stiffens, keeps nibbling away at her toast without giving a response. Because the truth is, she's been avoiding Wally like the plague. Wally West, who she can't bear to face (ha, like she can even do that anymore anyway), because what if he just wants to pity her now? What if he doesn't want a girlfriend who can't even see his expressions so full of life and stupidity? She doesn't want him coddling her, even though she knows he just cares for her. Artemis doesn't need anyone's pity, especially not Wally's. She's... scared of what he'll think about her now. The thought makes her grape jelly smeared toast stick in her throat.

Artemis, regrettably, hasn't spent much time outside of school or her own house since she was discharged from the Cave's infirmary. As it turns out, one doesn't realize how precious their eyesight is until it's completely ripped from their grasp. The past two weeks she's been familiarizing herself with her house, and her school, and generally going batshit insane from being trapped inside buildings. What she wouldn't give to be bounding across the Gotham City rooftops in her uniform, pinning bad guys to the walls of buildings and making this crime ridden place a little better for each one she dispatches.

Wally has called her no less than sixty times over the past few days, and Artemis, like the coward she is, has sat there and listened to his ringtone assault her ears. She hasn't seen him since it happened, since she asked everybody for a little space and begrudgingly allowed Black Canary to escort her home. Despite how worried sick Wally must be, he has respected her wishes of space, though he's not had any qualms about ringing her cell phone off the walls. Five unheard voice mails. About half the calls and all of the voice mails have arrived just in the past two days; it appears that anything over a week is, in Wally's eyes, cause for alarm when it comes to silence.

It's not a surprise that Wally's patience finally wears thin with her on the first night of her second week of being completely sightless. Artemis has just managed to take a perfectly nice shower without tripping on any part of the bathtub while getting in or out, and she's clad in her pjs, brushing her wet locks out smoothly when there's a sharp tapping on her window. It's all too familiar, the rap of knuckles against glass. Artemis bites at her lip.

"Artemis, it's me. Open up," Wally says, voice muffled. Artemis hesitates for a fraction of a second too long before she pads carefully across the room. Her hands feel around for the latch, popping it open and sliding the pane up and away for her boyfriend's entry. Artemis thinks it might be a mistake, because she's not at all prepared for the altercation, but she's missed the sound of his voice and she needs it now more than ever

Artemis doesn't say anything at first. She busies herself with lowering the pane of her window back down and latching it shut - this is Gotham City after all, and open windows are never desired - while she hears Wally settling himself some distance behind her. Her hands rest on the sill, shoulders stiff.

"Artemis, is everything okay? Why haven't you answered any of my calls?" Wally asks, breaking the silence like fragile shells. "The whole Team is worried about you."

"I'm fine. Everything's fine."

What a lie.

Everything's not fine, and it never will be.

And Wally knows her too well.

"Artemis..." he murmurs, his hand falling onto her tight shoulder. "Artemis, babe, please don't."

"Don't what?" she snaps, wishing she could lock her eyes straight onto his startling green ones and give him a glare. But the best she can do is follow the sound of his voice, which echoes off the narrow walls of her room, confusing her and sending her face and eyes in a direction that is, in fact, several inches shy of where her boyfriend's face is currently at.

"Don't cut everyone out," he says quietly. "Look, I... I just want to be here for you. I know you wanted some time alone, and I get that, I do, but... why do I get the feeling that if I hadn't ran all the way out here tonight, I wouldn't have heard from you for... a long time."

Artemis rubs the heels of her hands into her eyes.

"Wally, I just... I don't know what to do, okay? I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm useless now!" she whisper shouts, conscious of the fact that her mother is asleep only a few rooms away. "I don't know what to do with myself, okay? I wanted some time alone to get back on my feet, maybe to convince myself I'm _not _a useless archer, but guess what? Archers aren't blind! I can barely find my way to the kitchen in the mornings, I can't go on missions anymore, I can't see my friends, I can't- I can't see _you_!" Artemis's voice cracks, but she keeps going; she hadn't realized how much it was all building up inside of her until Wally's voice had tickled it right out of her ears. "I couldn't answer your calls because I probably wouldn't even hit the right button to answer it, and _because I was afraid of what you think about me now_."

"What?" Wally asks, incredulous. "Artemis, what are you-?"

"I'm _blind_, Wally. This completely changes everything about my life, and about yours if you stick around. I was just too much of a coward to actually watch... listen to you leave. So go ahead and do it. I'm just a burden to you now, and that's... that's the last thing I want for you."

Silence permeates the room, and Artemis really hates that he's not saying anything, not rejecting her like she'd always feared he would do, but for entirely different reasons. Tears sting at her eyes but she refuses to let them pass.

"Artemis?" Wally says, voice barely above a whisper. Artemis clenches her fists. This is it, here it comes.

"What?"

"You're so _stupid_."

What?

"What?" she splutters, turning towards the sound of his voice yet again.

"Do you really, honestly think, even for a second, that I'm about to just walk out of your life because you lost your sight? I mean, cause if you do, I'm incredibly insulted right now."

Artemis doesn't know what to say, so she furrows her brows in confusion. Wally's footsteps ruffle the carpet until she can sense his presence, feel his heat directly in front of her. His hand finds her chin, pulling her face up towards his own, which she guesses must be full of quite a mix of emotions right about now.

"What kind of person do you take me for? Artemis, _I love you_, okay? I'm seriously head over heels, over the moon for you, and you think that something like blindness is going to make me turn around and forget about my feelings for you? Would _you _walk out on _me _if I was blind?"

"Of course not!" Artemis retorts, irritated by the ludicrous question. Then it dawns on her. "Oh... no."

Wally sighs and pulls her to him in an embrace, and Artemis had almost forgotten how good, how right it feels to be surrounded by his warmth. She brings her hands up to clutch comfortingly at the back of his shirt.

"You're stuck with me until the end, babe, I'm afraid you're just going to have to deal with it."

"I'm not sure I can," Artemis chokes out, burying her face into his comforting laundry and cologne scent. "I'm sorry, Wally, I just... god this is all such bullshit. It's so stupid."

"I know, Artemis."

"I should have answered your calls."

"Yeah, you should have. Can't argue with the facts."

"Shut up," she berates, voice muffled. She feels him chuckle, the sound vibrating satisfyingly through her bones. The sound roots her. Sounds. She realizes that sounds are going to become so very important to her. She can't rely on Wally's lopsided grin with the freckles spraying upwards, or his ridiculous 80s inspired dance moves, or his lustful eating of food, or the tender expression on his face when she does something he thinks is cute. Now, it will be about his laughter, how deep it rumbles through her body. It will be about his snoring and his bad singing and his dramatic expletives and just his _voice_. High, low, raspy, husky, mocking, conspiratorial, loving, a whisper.

"Wally."

"Hm?"

"Will you... talk to me? Please? Just talk."

"About what?"

"Anything. Anything at all."

She pulls him to her bed and he talks. He talks about his school, and how worried he's been for her, how worried he was when it happened. He talks about the mission or two they've been on since she's been gone. He talks about chemistry and physics and astronomy, and then, as her room gets much darker and they lay back lazily on her bed, he starts carding his fingers through her hair and talking about _her_.

Wally rolls onto his back and pulls her on top of him. He grabs her face and guides her in for a kiss. With a jolt, Artemis realizes this is the first time they've kissed in well over a week. The first time they've been so close, so alone. His lips taste vaguely like some kind of cherry flavored candy, leaving her to wonder what sort of junk he'd been indulging in before he'd come to her place.

She pulls back to gaze lovingly at him. Her throat tightens in embarrassment when she realizes she can't even see him. Her cheeks flush.

If her speedster notices, he doesn't say anything, merely pulling her back in for more. The kiss grows more heated, her palms moving up to hold his mouth in place while she drags hers over it again and again, having already memorized it's exact taste and location. She can tell from the way they feel pressed against hers that they're swollen, and the image in her mind of his lips red and ravaged makes something hot tingle up her spine.

"Mm, babe," he mutters, nipping at her bottom lip. She plunges her tongue into his mouth in retaliation, and how has she never paid enough attention to the way everything feels with him? Well, she had, but now it's all so magnified, now that it's the only thing she has to concentrate on. Her tongue swipes over his own sensually, then runs along the ribbed roof of his mouth, then back to tangling with his tongue. After a while they pull away, breathing heavily, and Artemis gets off of him.

"Artemis?" Wally asks, confused. She ignores him, padding over to her bedroom door and locking it. She pulls her tank top over her head and sheds her underwear, tossing them into a pile before heading back his way, slow enough that she doesn't embarrass herself by getting her toe caught on the rug or something.

As soon as she reaches the bed, his hands are there on her bare hips, and he's pulling her back down on top of him.

"God, you're beautiful," Wally says, kissing at her bare shoulder.

Artemis kisses his nose and pulls his shirt off, which he readily complies with.

Then her hands are on him, but slowly, tentatively, like she's never touched him before this moment. His pecs jump beneath her calloused fingertips, and she feels some sense of strange relief that everything feels the same. There's still that scar close to his nipple, puckered and raised so that her thumb slides over it with ease of memory. His abs are still there, of course. They're still very nicely defined, and he's still got that little mole on his side, and the hairs on his arms are still there, giving way under her hands as she brushes them in the wrong direction.

Most importantly, his breath still hitches each time she strokes warm skin, each time she moves on to a new spot. Artemis spends a long time just letting her hands roam over him, stopping occasionally for a kiss or two. And he's just all patience beneath her, sometimes helping guide her hands to a scar or a patch of freckles she might have forgotten(not that she can feel his freckles, but if she imagines hard enough, she thinks she can, like little grains of darker skin under her nails, like sand.)

"I love you," she tells him quietly, running her fingers through the orange trail of hair leading down from his belly button as she kisses his mouth. Wally grabs her face, brushing her damp hair away.

"I promise, babe, everything is going to be alright. I'm here for you, and the Team is here for you, and your mom is here for you... and I love you, okay? And you are definitely not, under any circumstances, ever a burden."

Artemis kisses him. She kisses him sweetly, roughly, memorizing the texture of his lips as her fingers hook around his shorts and underwear and push them down, down past his hips.

She takes even greater care and time in memorizing the sweet sounds he makes after that point.


End file.
